Columbia Hub

I got my interview at Columbia at the very far end of ED applications. I was already preparing myself for a ding without interview. I am glad and feel lucky to have received the invite for interview. I have given the interview process a 4/5 star as I believe the policy of contacting 1 alumni at a time does limit your options and as these alumni are almost always busy, it becomes very difficult to schedule one. CBS' rolling admission does put a pressure on you to get your materials and itnerviews in as earliest as possible. My first interviewer was out of town and thus could not reply in time to my request for an interview. I was lucky that my second interviewer was very quick to respond back to my request for an interview. I scheduled my interview for 4 days later and the drive to the interviewer's office was 30 minutes long. I arrived at his office at 11 AM and he was very cordial and happy to interview me that day. We started off with the alumnus providing his background, his current and past work experiences and then we moved onto the actual interview. I was told at the beginning that the interviewer already had some questions prepared to ask me as I had already sent my resume with the interview request. It started with some very particular questions and he wanted to understand why I chose a particular path be it my education or my professional experience. After I was also asked the reasons for opting for my field of studies whether it was my UG or Master's studies or my first job or extracurriculars I involved myself with. I was asked the standard why MBA, why CBS, Why NYC, Plan B, what other schools did you apply to and why, why did you apply to CBS in ED round when you applied to other schools etc (all the standard questions that you will get from clear admit's or mbamission's interview guides). The interview lasted 45 minutes and was very conversational. I was taken aback when I was asked about my plan B if I am not able to lets say get courses of my liking or internship/full time offer in the industry of my choice. At the end of the interview, I was asked to talk about any questions I might have for the interviewer. 1 lesson I learnt was to tackle every question in a way that will lead you to talk about how/what are you going to bring to CBS' community. Once you do that convincingly, interview should be easy to navigate. Make sure to have a plan B type of answer prepared so that you can show that you have done your due diligence. The interview feedback was submitted the very same evening Final Result: Ding after interview. Probably I was not able to tackle the Plan B type of questions convincingly or 'diversity' of the class of 2018 played a role, I wouldnt know for sure. Anything different for next time: Probably go over the interview guides by stacy blackman and clearadmit in detail to cover all the possible interview questions and their possible answers.